Field Journals
Week 1 This week I observed at a High School in Denver. In the high school there are 359 total students with 24 full time teachers. The minority enrollment at the school is 86% of the student body and 90% of the student body are economically disadvantaged. The high school has a majority Hispanic population with 79% of the school identifying as Hispanic. The next highest race group is white at 14% followed by blacks at 5%. American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, and two or more races each make up another 1% of the student body. The gender distribution is an equal 50/50 split between males and females. The ELL class I observed had 10 students, 5 females and 5 males. In this class, all 10 were native Spanish speakers. The instructor told me she has a few students from Africa and a few from the middle east, but the majority of her students are Hispanic. In this class there were a range of abilities. I could tell that most students were more comfortable speaking Spanish, but most of them could understand English. The teacher spoke in English the entire class but was clearly able to understand Spanish. In speaking to her after class, she said she is fluent in Italian, so she can understand Spanish, but she doesn’t actually speak it. The high school is clearly a low-income school. I have observed for another teacher at this school before and she had told me that her priority is to keep the kids safe. The teacher I observed in the ELL room told me that she tries to make her lessons relevant to these kids. She said that they do not have a high post-secondary attendance rate. This class period, the students were finishing up reading an abridged version of Romeo and Juliet. The classroom rule was to speak in English at least twice during the class discussion. The students had to be reminded to speak in English, but nearly all of them did well. The students seemed to understand quite well but were clearly nervous about speaking in English. Several of them seemed afraid to make mistakes. The students obviously respected and enjoyed both each other and the teacher. The teacher created questions surrounding the plot of Romeo and Juliet that were easy for them to answer in English, but that could be relatable to their current life. The teacher said that she tries to keep students involved by spending part of the class speaking about current events to keep everything relevant. The teacher I spent time with is the only ELL teacher on staff. She has four classes, each with 10 to 12 students. Some students come to her once, while some come twice. Students who come twice need more support or are working hard to transition out of ELL. After the students are out of her class, they are still welcome to come to her for help. While I was there, several students came in asking for help in other classes who were no longer in her class. She had those students come back during her planning period so that she could better assist them. It was a great experience to be in her classroom and I am looking forward to learning more about these programs. Week 2 This week I moved to an elementary school where I will complete the remainder of my observation hours for this class. I am now at an Elementary School in Aurora. There are 523 students in the school from K to grade 5. Within this student population, 57% are receiving free or reduced lunch. The student body is 40% white, 27% Hispanic, 19.5% African American, 10.3% multiracial, 1.3% Asian, 0.6% Native American and 0.6% Pacific Islander. The second-grade class I am observing has 20 students. Of those students, 5 are English language learners. Three students are of Hispanic origin and native Spanish speakers, one is Ethiopian, and one is from Pakistan. Two of the three Hispanic students are close to exiting the ELA program at the school. The student from Pakistan is speaking well but cannot read or write English at all. The school has a family literacy program that is free to the parents and family of students in the ELA program at the school. In this program, student’s families are invited in to learn to read, write, and speak in English for two-and-a-half hours four days a week.. Students who are English language learners are in the general education classroom for the majority of the day. The teacher I worked with told me that when the students are in her class, she works to partner ELL students with native English speakers for activities in order to be sure that the students are supported. The school district implements a co-teaching model for ELA. The general education teachers and the ELA teachers work together to collaborate on daily lesson plans and instruction goals. They use a scaffolding model to supplement grade-level instruction ranging from pictures to individualized vocabulary lessons. The goals behind the co-teaching model are to increase access to grade level content for ELL students and provide explicit language development within content areas. The ELA specialists also work with students to increase cultural awareness. They work with students and teachers to help everyone understand basic cultural differences. Unfortunately, I was unable to observe the ELA program in detail this week as the ELA specialists are currently doing mandated ACCESS testing to determine English Language Acquisition Progress. What I was able to see was the progress of the student from Pakistan. The teacher I am observing told me that he was new to the country in September and spoke no English whatsoever. At this point in the school year, he is interacting with and able to hold a conversation with his native English-speaking peers. I was able to be in the classroom for math, science and history. The teacher had previously had the students write their own math story problems, and today they were solving these problems. The ELA students were partnered with native English speakers. They each individually solved the problem, but then came back together to discuss and compare their results. I was able to observe part of the family literacy program. The school has brought in families of students who were formerly ELA who are now fluent in English and their native languages to help the families who speak only their native language. For some families speaking less common dialects, the school has hired individuals who speak those dialects to help these families learn English. During the week, one day of the program is parent time where they discuss what their role is as parents in the school and the community. Two days are spent in English classes and one day is parent and child time where the parents are able to spend time in their child’s classroom. I look forward to being able to observe this and the co-teaching model more. Week 3 This week I was back in the second-grade classroom with several ELL students. In the classroom, most of the ELL students are fairly advanced in the ELL process it seems. I did notice that there is a lot of partner work in which ELL students are partnered with stronger readers. When I first walked into the classroom, there was a short passage about badgers on the board. The students came into the classroom, grabbed their white boards from their desks and a dry erase marker and sat on the carpet around the smart board. The students then began writing the bolded words in the passage on their whiteboards. All of the students were doing this individually, but the teacher had told a few students who were ELL to choose the “power” words (like, it, the, see) and write those instead. After all of the students were in and settled, they began taking turns reading the passage outloud to the class. Students were only called on if they volunteered to read outloud. Once most students had the opportunity to read aloud, they read the passage together as a class and then talked about the facts they were able to discern from the passage. The teacher explained to me that typically during this period of time, the ELL teacher at the school would be co-teaching with her, however she was still completing ACCESS testing with her ELL students in other grades. I also observed the class during their writing workshop block. For this block of time, the class was working on writing an opinion piece about which version of “The Mitten” they liked better. The teacher used the smart board and a power point to go through the parts of an opinion writing. They reviewed the initial hook and then the statement of the kids opinion. To begin the lesson, the kids were given a graphic organizer to detail their reasons for choosing each option. One ELL student was struggling with the organizer, so the teacher spent more time helping him verbalize what he wanted to say before writing it. She has posted in the classroom a chart that says, “If you can think it, you can say it. If you can say it, you can write it. If you can write it, you can read it. If you can read it, so can everyone!” I really like this saying. It breaks down the process into easy steps for students, especially those learning English. She did repeat this to her ELL student who was struggling in order to help them think and verbalize before writing. After the writing workshop portion of class, the students moved into reading. The teacher used the smart board to play a book using myon reader. This website read the book while highlighting the words as it read. It seemed like a great use of technology, especially for new readers and ELL students. They could see which word was being said as they heard it. The students really seemed engaged in this. While the store was being read, the teacher would pause and ask students to predict what they thought would happen next. They talked about the characters and the setting as well as what the problem and solution were. After the story was over, they created another graphic organizer where they drew the characters, setting, problem and solution for the story. They were given the option to draw or write this. In this classroom, it’s obvious that the teacher appreciates and uses appropriate technology to support all of her students, including the ELL students. Each student has their own computer. The computers for the students with ELL are equipped with translation and dictation software should they be struggling. It didn’t seem that the students in her class used that software much. I am looking forward to the end of ACCESS testing in order to observe the classroom with the coteaching model with the ELL teacher in the classroom. I think that it could be really beneficial to these students. According to the classroom teacher, these students have made tremendous progress in their language development over the course of this school year. Week 4 See Parent and Community Engagement Plan Week 5 I was able to share my lesson plan with my cooperating teacher and with the ELA teacher that works with the classroom teacher. This week when I was in the classroom, the ELA teacher was co-teaching during the students writing time. They were writing their own version of “The Mitten” to continue with their compare and contrast lesson. My cooperating teacher didn’t have much feedback on my lesson. She thought it looked great and asked if I would like to teach it at some point before the end of the session. She shared with me the activities that they do for their fairy tale unit to help get some additional ideas. Some of the goals for their unit were to notice the similarities and differences across multiple stories, to learn life lessons even when stories aren’t realistic. Their assessment evidence section was really helpful as well. It is very specific, like identifying the elements of a fairy tale through a chart and writing a script and acting out a scene using puppets with specific fairy tale elements. When I shared my lesson with the ELA teacher, she had some specific ideas as well. She wanted me to get more specific in my assessment and have an activity or a rubric. She liked the idea of the Beginning Middle End Chain to create a story chain but wondered if we could do it in a buddy system in order to better assist the ELL students. She also suggested adding an activity for vocabulary in order to help connect my students to the vocabulary. I think it was really valuable to discuss my lesson plan with these teachers. They both liked the story choice which I appreciated because I had put a lot of thought and research into choosing a book that would appeal to all of the students in the class. In changing my lesson plan, I think I will expand the assessment section and get a more specific activity in there. I also think that I could add reading the original goldilocks for a compare and contrast element to the lesson if time allows. This week was enlightening about how to adjust a lesson plan for a culturally diverse classroom. I am looking forward to observing again this week while paying close attention to what elements of the teacher’s lesson plan appeal to the ELL students in the room. Week 6 1. What does the RTI process look like at this school? a. Throughout the district, we utilize the Plan, Teach, Monitor, and Adjust approach. In this model, we are able to identify students early and work on growth and mastery for all students. RTI allows us to identify students who need help early and be sure that our kids are growing at the rate they need to be. 2. Who is involved in the RTI here? a. At our school, most of the time the classroom teacher is the one who refers students to RTI. In this classroom I have several students on RTI and a couple on IEP’s. Once the RTI has begun, the team consists of the principal, a learning specialist, an EL instructor (if an ELL student), the school psychologist, parents, and any other specialist needed. 3. Do you have a lot of ELL students on RTI? a. In my classroom, we have one student on an RTI that is an ELL student. She struggles with writing and we suspect dyslexia, but we obviously can’t diagnose that and a doctor must do the diagnostic. 4. What is the first step for the RTI process? a. First the teacher (me, EL, another grade level teacher) makes a referral for RTI based on our assessments. We use DRA and DIBELS for this age most of the time. Then the RTI team meets, looks at the data and discusses the first stage of interventions 5. What kind of interventions are put into place? a. We see all kinds of interventions. We get academic concerns as well as behavioral concerns for RTI. Many of the kids end up being put on a READ plan. Some of our interventions can be as simple as a behavior chart while others might include specific phonics instruction or math instruction. 6. Do you feel that the RTI process is effective? a. I feel that our school does a good job with the RTI process. For some kids, it feels a little bit like a hinderance because it makes the process slower for kids that we know need more help. For others it helps us target the specific problem easier and more quickly. 7. How do you think your school could improve the RTI process? a. We are sometimes a little hesitant to implement an RTI and I think we have a few students fall through the cracks because of it. 8. How does the RTI process help your CLD learners? a. Everything for our CLD learners is done in their native language when they are being tested. Because of this, we don’t mis-identify a language barrier for a special education need. It helps our students not to be misrepresented in the special education population. Week 7 The lesson I observed today was a “Writing Celebration” for the finish of their big writing project. The students have spent the last several weeks writing their own version of “The Mitten” using picture prompts for each animal that enters the mitten. The students have finished writing their stories, and today they were giving feedback to each other on their finished books. Each student displayed his or her finished book on their desk with an index card for their peers to write feedback on. The teacher gave the students several ideas for students to look for in their peers writing. The students were asked to look for good uses of strong verbs, adjectives, similes, transition words, fun facts, and dialogue. They were given about 50 minutes to complete their feedback task. They were asked only to read one or two pages and provide one or two sentences of feedback. They were asked to be sure that their feedback involved more than just “good job” and that they used specific examples. While the students were going around the room, the teacher was looking at the feedback they were giving to their peers and gave them feedback on their feedback. She spent most of the time asking the students questions to guide them in their work. Her questions were things like “What did you like? How did he write? What specifics can you give? What did he/she do here?” She also gave reminders on giving positive feedback, using kind words, and being specific. The class was a little bit squirrely, so she had to give a lot of feedback on behavior during this time period. I think that this teacher does a good job of keeping the goal in mind when giving feedback. Her feedback was focused on the goal of providing positive feedback to peers and providing actionable feedback. She was focused on specifics for the students rather than just, good job. I appreciate the fact that she is teaching second graders to provide peer feedback. I think that in showing the students to be positive, oriented towards specific goals of the writing project, and actionable demonstrates her knowledge on giving feedback. I also observed the students beginning their projects for their Fairytale unit wrap-up. The teacher used principles of UDL in the student’s projects. She allowed students to work individually, in pairs, or in a small group. The students chose one of the fairy tales they had read over the course of the unit and then picked a way in which to demonstrate their knowledge on the topic. One group was doing a puppet show, another group performing a skit. There was one student creating the story using Legos and two groups of students creating a poster board to show their knowledge. Another group was writing a song about their fairy tale. I was really impressed by how she allowed them all the freedom to demonstrate what they knew. She provided feedback on projects and gave ideas to struggling students.